Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
agenda; both these sets of actors retain a degree of ambivalence, however, that has
militated against a fully multi-actor model of EU security governance.
General commitments
The seminal moment of the EU acknowledging the geopolitical dimensions of
climate change came in 2007. In that year, the EU initiated an internal re
ection
on climate security that engendered several policy commitments. In 2008 the then
foreign policy high representative, Javier Solana, published a joint paper with the
European Commission,
Climate Change and International Security
. This recognised
climate change as a
that needed to be placed at the heart of EU
security policy. It warned that the risks were not just humanitarian but political and
strategic, a
'
threat multiplier
'
ecting the EU
'
s own interests. The paper provided a comprehensive
outline of
ict over resources; more and costly
humanitarian operations; new disputes over land and maritime borders; increased
environmental migration and pressure for migrants to be granted refugee status;
more state fragility, accompanied by radicalisation; more pressure for nuclear
energy, with problems for non-proliferation; tensions between north and south,
but also between rising powers and least developed countries. Challenges would
vary: in Africa, fragility; in the Middle East, water wars; in Asia, coastal mega-cities
beset by new vulnerabilities. The paper noted that the e
the challenges:
intensi
ed con
ects of climate insecurity
were already evident, not a matter of future speculation. The paper served pri-
marily to put down a marker and
ag up the need for more systematic policy
designs. Its own recommendations were not particularly decisive: it called mainly
for
'
more work to be done
'
and dialogue on climate-security impacts to be inclu-
ded in the EU
s various regional partnerships. It claimed rather breezily that the
issue played to the EU
'
this was
phrased almost as if impending climate apocalypse were a boon for the EU.
1
After the paper was released, follow-up took the shape of discussions on the
topic with global partners, e
'
s strengths, as it required holistic responses
-
s remit
and a series of seminars and commissioned studies. On the back of the 2008 report,
the Commission and Council Secretariat set up an
orts to move climate security on to the UNSC
'
'
Informal steering group on
climate change and international security
. Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France
and the UK have played prominent roles in keeping this forum active in Brussels.
This represented a more formalised version of the Green Diplomacy Network
(GDN) that had started functioning in 2003, with the aim of feeding environ-
mental factors into foreign policy deliberations. In fact, the EAS re-launched and
also took over chairing the GDN in 2012, speci
'
cally with the aim of bee
ng up
its hitherto low pro
le and mobilising it as a resource to mainstream foreign policy
questions within climate change deliberations.
